Here's 2 from pre-work session this AM. Simple unweighted rabbit over palmered maribou with palmered hackle collars. Mixed hackle collar colors on the one fly, aiming for gills or a bleeding baitfish.
Keep on tying! 🙂
Here's my basic vest/backpack setup. 1 box up front (either the double-sided Plano box with bass flies or one of the trout boxes), two boxes in the back. The Booger box is mostly salt and the larger Plano is the warehouse box full of backups that I swap out as needed.
The Booger box and the 2 smaller trout boxes are store-bought flies. The rest of the flies I've tied since March.
Tight lines, everybody! Keep on tying and posting! 🙂
Up way early this AM, raining outside, and it got me in a Matuka mood...my first trout on a streamer OTHER than a wooly booger came in the rain on the Davidson on an olive Matuka. (25 years ago or so). Big bow hit it like a freight train. The rod (an old Pflueger $40.00 outfit the wife and kids bought me and that I still have and use!) felt like a jolt of electricity went through it, startling me so bad I nearly dropped it!
The big green one is the first I've tied with bass in mind- wire wraps under the chenille body, a red flash throat (Deceiver style) and a palmered hackle collar.
Not a bad couple hours so far.
Keep on tying! And keep posting! I like pictures...
Great looking flies & your technique is superb. A word of warning, but by no means a criticism... Well, maybe it is, maybe not. The bead head will sink your fly to a desired depth. It may not give your fly the desired presentation, except in current. Makuta style flies, and many others, are attractive because of the profile they present. In still or slow water, with a bead head weight forward, that profile may be nose down, which is not entirely natural. Current may counteract that weight and make the presentation very natural. You'll have to experiment and let the fish tell you, not me. But my overall experience in still water / soft water is that a fly that rests and sinks at a near horizontal profile will outperform one that sinks nose down or tail down. That is supported by the precise proportions of old school wet flies & streamers. It is contradicted by the Clouser Deep Minnow which seems to catch fish of every variety almost everywhere. But that's because it is fished so often in pocket water or in heavy currents, or stripped so fast that the weight forward becomes immaterial. Not saying that design of your flies is wrong. Just that they'll probably work best in conditions that compliment that weight forward design. Either way, very nice work.
Taken in the spirit that was meant! ☺
The bead heads are meant for current and a fast 2-handed strip. Thinking smallies, stripers, and salt.
Checked out Rhody's this morning- you bet I'm tying up some tonight after work for the stripers here on Badin; that's a killer profile for an upward-looking fish!
Thank you.
Tying up some springtime trout dry flies...little yellow sallies and Wulff flies. You can bet the first 4 flies or so in this batch aren't shown- I am still trying to overcome crowding the eyes on small dries. Making my own rabbit fur dubbing for the Wulffs. Calf tail wings and tails.
Keep on Tying!
Rainy days are good tying days...
Working on a Wulff pack- sizes 12 and 14.
Threw in my first Rhody flatwing for a nightcap. Head needs a little slimming, but I'll work on it. Thanks BMAC.
Keep on Tying Tyers!
Still working on dries. World of difference between these flies and the ones I tied back in March when I started. The old ones look nice- but they're hopelessly useless, with the eyes threaded over...think I'll save the old ones for trick flies and hand them out to unsuspecting good friends.
Give me the old favorites any day. Working on hackle tip wings- Adams and Female Adams, #14 and #16. The box is filling up a half-dozen flies at a time; bass box is "full", trout boxes each about three quarters full. After that, saltwater flies!
Tight lines, everybody!
Crazy Charlie style rubber legs. Very effective for local reds in the marsh during winter when water's cold and gin clear. 6 Wt or even 5 Wt more than enough rod
I haven't tied a lot of foam crabs, and I wasn't really happy with the initial ones. Got marginally better as a tied more. Doubt the fish will care a whole lot. I think they'll work.
Last pic isn't really a fly. It's meant to be fished off of light spin gear. Flats jig head marketed by a guy named Heath Hipple (Hippel?) down in FL. He's got a cool website, and he's very helpful in explaining how to put this pattern and others together if you call or email him. Buggs Lures. This one looks just like a crab in the water, and I've caught a good number of fish on it. Bet it would be a dynamite smallie lure if scaled down just a tad.
Just messing around with this #16 Adams...
Not ready yet, but I'm sure I'll be bugging (get it?) you salt tiers in a month or so for patterns and suggestions (BMAC, NCTribute... )
Some more trout/panfish dries I've been tying. All over the place- Catskill-type dries (hackled too heavily to be true Catskill, but I'm fishing NC, not NY.) ; Parachutes as well as Western style heavy-hackled dries. Tiny peacock herl midges for dessert.
Some small stuff I tied after doing VDay candy bags. A size 20 Griffith's Gnat and a size 24 something with tan dubbing with an Antron trailing shuck.
View attachment 177898View attachment 177906
Booked a trip to Mossy Creek, VA. These may come in handy. Let's hope nothing decides to break before spring break.
It was a day of first for me. First time using the foam popper bodies. Tied 5 of them different ways just to see what fishes the best and go from there. First time doing a sculpin and first articulated fly.
Been on dink patrol with a deer haired munch minnow slider with legs. Several on this fly alone already; although none have been anything to brag about, many have gone airborne and missed, and I was able to get em on the next cast. They're hungry!
Tight lines, all!
Pre-dawn session this morning. A Bloody brown and green and a Bloody Ace of Spades Matuka. Got a little wayward with the wire on the Ace of Spades, but it'll fish.
Keep on tying!
Composite body streamer.
1/4" tungsten cone head, Rabbit Zonker tail with 25lb. mono tail support, Ice Dub UV Calilbaetis and Quick Descent body, dark red Ice Dub for gills with Rabbit cross cut collar.
Funny, Tom. Purple is my wife's choice as well- her Harley's Purple, her pistol's purple, and she has 4 or 5 different purple flies I've tied for her hanging on her car visor!
The " Greatest Smallmouth Fly ".....I made a few smaller for trout sized mouths.
White/brown Marabou tail with barred brown Zonker over body.
Root Beer cactus Chenille
Brown Bugger hackle with brown wire palmered through to head wiith large lead free dumbell eyes.
Root Beer ice dub on top
Pearl UV Lazer Dub for bottom.
Beautifully done. I'd commend to you the Shenk's Streamer as one that should be in your smallmouth box. Wet fly swing across a tail out or head of a pool makes them lose their minds. Nice work.
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